--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Tuesday, February 8th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. And I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News Today. Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The U.S. and Germany are united in their effort to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine. That's the message from President Biden. After meeting with the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House, the president made it clear, if Moscow does not back down, it's putting at risk its new gas pipeline that connects Russia and Germany.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again. Then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it. If Russia does attack Ukraine, United States intelligence is estimating up to 50,000 civilians could be killed or wounded, that Kiev could be quickly overthrown, and that up to 5 million people could flee.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The news has people in Ukraine on edge. One resident told The Washington Post she tried to ignore the tension until last month. News headlines were getting more and more daunting, so she's now started to prepare. She recently asked her building manager where to find the key to the building's bomb shelter. She's got clothes, prescriptions, and all these sentimental items in a small backpack by her door.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: As The Post reports, city officials in Kiev have dusted off old Cold War-era maps of bunkers that are all around the city. And these bunkers are being used for all kinds of other things these days, as dance studios, comedy clubs, strip clubs. Now, residents are thinking about whether they'll need to be used for their original purpose again.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Schools in Kiev have already started practicing evacuation drills, and the subway is being prepared to serve as a mass shelter if needed. Engineers are also testing the country's Soviet-era siren system. Since 2014, the year Russia invaded Crimea, the country's emergency preparedness agency has tested mobile hospitals, water distribution hubs, and a nationwide text messaging system.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Should cell phone networks fail, they'll deliver information via radio broadcasts from vans with loudspeakers. Ukraine is familiar with instability. It's seen humanitarian crises and war dating back centuries. But people on the ground are telling reporters that this time, things feel different.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: One man told the Wall Street Journal that on the one hand Ukrainians know the drill. But on the other, he worries his country could become the next Syria.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: U.S. figure skater Nathan Chen set a world record today in Beijing. He earned the highest score ever for a men's short program. This was a huge turnaround from his 2018 Olympics performance.
--:-- Nathan Chen: I was just elated. Last Olympics, both short programs didn't go the way that I wanted. And finally getting an opportunity to skate the program to the way that I wanted, it feels really great. It means a lot.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Meanwhile, his teammate is facing serious heartbreak. Earlier in the day, Vincent Zhou said he tested positive for COVID and posted an emotional video to Instagram.
--:-- Vincent Zhou: I've already lost count of the number of times I've cried today, but I'm happy to say that at least one of those times was happy tears. That was when I found out that I became an Olympic silver medalist.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Zhou is not able to compete today. The rules in Beijing are if you test positive, you're put in isolation. Athletes in Beijing are saying the rules and conditions of mandatory isolation are miserable.
--:-- Vincent Zhou: Those who've been quarantined are complaining about everything from inadequate food to no internet to limited access to workout equipment.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: American bobsledder Alana Myers-Taylor tested positive, and she told USA Today Sports about doing sprints in her tiny room and trying to pump for her newborn baby, who she was separated and isolated from.
--:-- Alana Myers-Taylor: I think the mom gets the best of you when you're traveling your kid around and you want to make sure he's okay, and now I can't even be with him. And that's probably one of the most difficult things ever is not being with him.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: She's since been cleared to compete. In the past two weeks or so, hundreds of Olympics participants have tested positive. A Russian biathlon athlete stuck in quarantine went on Instagram to write, I want all this to end. I cry every day. I'm very tired.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The head of Germany's delegation called the hotel conditions unreasonable. And the Finnish hockey coach says one of their players was kept in isolation, even though the team doctor said he was no longer infectious.
--:-- Finnish Hockey Coach: The coach called his ongoing isolation a violation of his human rights.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Belgian skeleton racer Kim Meilmans also posted an emotional video. And in this video on Instagram, she describes being confused. She thought she was being taken out of isolation.
--:-- Kim Meilmans: I'm supposed to stay here for another seven days with two PCRs a day and no contact with anybody else. We are not even sure I will ever be allowed to return to the village. And obviously this is very hard for me.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Meilmans has since returned to the Olympic village though still under quarantine. The International Olympic Committee and the Beijing Organizing Committee said yesterday that steps were taken to improve conditions for athletes.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And it seems that, at least for some athletes in quarantine, things are getting better. The head of the German delegation told reporters his athletes now have bigger rooms, working Wi-Fi, and more workout equipment.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Did you hear about the woman on Long Island who got a call from a scammer and decided she was going to reel him in? He starts calling me grandma. And then I'm like, I don't have a grandson that drives, so I knew it was a scam.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The caller claimed he was her grandson who had been arrested for drunk driving and needed bail money. So she told him, come to the house and get it. In the meantime, she called the police.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: When the scammer arrived for the cash, police apprehended him. It's an incredible story. And unfortunately, it's a really unusual one.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The far more common route is what happened to Wired reporter Becca Andrews' family. I get a call from my dad, and it's very obvious from his voice that something has happened. Also, he just doesn't normally call me in the middle of a weekday.
--:-- Becca Andrews: And it turns out my mom was scammed the night prior. In 2020, Americans lost more than $3 billion to fraud. And Andrews' mom was just one of them.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Andrews writes about the whole experience in Wired. Here's how it happened. Her mom got a call from someone telling her that something was wrong with her Amazon account.
--:-- Becca Andrews: The caller said someone had gotten access to her banking information through Amazon, that her banking accounts were vulnerable. But don't worry, I'm here to help.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now, at this point in the pandemic, Andrews' mom had been cooped up in the house for weeks after getting COVID, and she found the voice on the phone reassuring.
--:-- Becca Andrews: Andrews' mom had a brain injury decades ago, and it made it hard for her to follow instructions. But this caller stayed with her, showed her how to install a bunch of apps on her phone, the cash app, PayPal.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: At the end of the long call, Andrews' mom was relieved that the person on the other end of the line seemingly helped her family avert a financial crisis.
--:-- Becca Andrews: But that was so far from the truth. They were able to drain about $11,000 from her, but they also got a lot of her personal information, which made us really concerned about identity theft.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Andrews and her father quickly called their bank, and they managed to recover most of the money. But getting scammed was dehumanizing.
--:-- Becca Andrews: Not only did this family have to spend hours pleading with financial institutions for help but they also worried this could happen again.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Andrews says it made her parents scared of anything that asks for credit card information. She wanted to do everything in her power to keep her parents safe, so she decided to move closer to them.
--:-- Becca Andrews: My mom felt stupid. That was a word that she used a lot in talking to me about it, and it just really broke my heart. And I felt like, you know, this happens to so many people. Why are we not having a larger conversation about it?
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: According to the FBI, these types of scams tend to target older Americans. And they play out a lot like they did in Andrews' mom's case.
--:-- Becca Andrews: The scammers pose as tech support or a charitable organization or the IRS. They're trusting and they're polite. Sometimes the scams are incredibly elaborate.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And unlike the scammer we told you about first, the one who pretended to be calling his grandma, most will never be caught.
--:-- Becca Andrews: I think we have this stereotype of people who are like elderly and vulnerable and gullible. And the thing is, it happens to everyone.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: These scams have gotten so sophisticated that anyone can be taken in by them. And we're not holding the people who perpetrate these crimes accountable.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Nominations for the Razzies are out. You know, the Golden Raspberry Awards. This is the tongue-in-cheek answer to the Oscars, where judges hand out best of the worst awards.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And one thing's for sure, Bruce Willis, he's gonna win. That's because this year, the Razzies made a whole category just for him.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: You see, while we were all doing whatever we were doing last year, Bruce Willis was in eight movies. Eight movies! So the Razzies figured they should just stand alone.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The category is called Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 movie. I know what you're thinking. How did Bruce Willis do eight movies in one year?
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Well, according to IMDb, one of those movies called American Siege took only eight days to shoot. You can get a lot done on that kind of timeline.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Razzies will be awarded the night before the Oscars on March 26th. So may the best Bruce win.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: You can find all those stories and more in the Apple News app. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
